Rhetorical Analysis Of The Bad Seed By Anna Quindlen

Teenage depression and mental health has been downplayed by adults, resulting in a worse turn of fate. Many children and teenagers aren’t receiving the care they need from parents, psychologists and the mental health system. In her essay regarding teenage depression and mental health, Anna Quindlen implores parents, educators, and politicians to be aware and considerate of children’s mindsets. In her intro, Quindlen draws the audience in using provocative diction. She uses words like “rope, gun, plague, waste” to captivate the audience into becoming emotionally invested into her essay. These words are intended to appeal to her audience’s sympathies and appeal to protective instincts in parents. Parents and caregivers experiencing these urges will feel the need to become involved in protecting and nurturing these debilitated children and teenagers. By hooking them in emotionally, she is now able to convince her audience with hard hitting facts and uncomfortable truths. In paragraphs 2-5, Quindlen utilizes Kip Kinkel and Sam Manzie’s stories and the allusion of “The Bad Seed”. By talking about Kip Kinkel and Sam Manzie, the author ignites feelings of discontent and dissatisfaction through their tales, struggles, and maltreatment. The author creates this by using words like useless,

She utilizes facts like “6 million and two-thirds” to show the extent of these deficiencies and the number of children who go untreated. This is used to jolt the audience into the realization that the magnitude of this issue is far reaching in magnitude and might affect teenagers they know. In paragraph 7, Quindlen uses an analogy about vaccines to connect to caregivers. By talking about vaccines, the audience can relate to a concrete and visible concept like illness rather than the perplexing and illusiveness that is mental